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Observational Fear as a Model of Affective Empathy in Mice

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Affect as a Psychological Primitive.

Lisa Feldman Barrett¹, Eliza Bliss-Moreau

¹Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School, Psychiatric Neuroimaging Program and Martinos Imaging Center, Department of Radiology; Department of Psychology, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, USA.

Advances in Experimental Social Psychology

|June 17, 2010

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

This study proposes that affect is a fundamental human mind property. Core affect, a basic mental property, influences emotions, learning, and consciousness.

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Area of Science:

Psychology
Neuroscience
Cognitive Science

Background:

Historical perspectives on affect.
Contemporary views of core affect as a basic mental property.
Core affect realized in a distributed neuronal workspace.

Purpose of the Study:

To present affect as a fundamental, psychologically irreducible property of the human mind.
To introduce the affective circumplex model.
To explore the influence of core affect on emotion, learning, and consciousness.

Main Methods:

Review of historical and contemporary theories of affect.
Description of core affect within a neuronal workspace framework.
Presentation of the affective circumplex model for representing affective states.

Main Results:

The affective circumplex mathematically formalizes core affective states.
The model accounts for individual differences in affective feelings.
Affective states are linked to variations in emotional experience.

Conclusions:

Core affect is a fundamental property of the human mind.
The affective circumplex provides a framework for understanding affective states.
Core affect has broad psychological consequences beyond emotion, impacting learning and consciousness.